


Mind / Body / Heart / Soul

by mithborien



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-31
Updated: 2005-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-19 14:16:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithborien/pseuds/mithborien





	Mind / Body / Heart / Soul

In Azkaban things were different. Time was meaningless. Days and hours transformed into Padfoot and screams and the one memory that kept him balancing this side of sane.

Here, every day is crystal sharp and there is nothing to distract him from the harsh walls that box him in. He swore he would never set foot in this house again but the bitter irony of broken promises is something that he has become accustomed to.

So he counts the days, carving lines into a lonely banister until he can escape again. One hundred days and counting but nothing has changed.

***

He supposes he should have been smart enough to see the danger but the thick joy he felt with his friends (his only friends) and the feeling of something other than dread every month blinded him.

The first one was bad, the worst he could remember. Claws, teeth and pain ripping through warm flesh; punishment and absolution because he had been so stupid and so naïve that he never saw it coming.

So every month he reminds himself to not be so foolish again. But even after the hundredth moon since he lost his friends, it doesn’t get any easier.

***

He never meant for it to go so far. He was just trying to help and it wasn’t his fault that no one would ever believe him of that.

He knew deep down that he was just as good as they were. He was just as strong, just as smart and just as cunning.

And he would prove it.

It wasn’t his fault that everything went so wrong.

But as he extends his wrist, watching the shadowy faces of the hundred Death Eaters around him he wonders whether he will ever be good enough to get out of this one.

***

He winces as Lily screams and grips his hand again before dropping back to the bed with a gasp. He whispers soothing words in her ear, kisses her forehead and wipes the sweat off her neck.

“Every 100 seconds now,” he tells the Healer then turns back to his wife. He can see the pride and pain in her eyes and he can’t help but smile.

Their son is about to be born, his friends are waiting to congratulate him and his wife is the strongest, most beautiful person on this earth and nothing, _nothing_ , is going to break that.


End file.
